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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Machinery \Ma*chin"er*y\, noun [From {Machine}: cf. F. machinerie.]
1. Machines, in general, or collectively.
2. The working parts of a machine, engine, or instrument; as, the machinery of a watch.
3. The supernatural means by which the action of a poetic or fictitious work is carried on and brought to a catastrophe; in an extended sense, the contrivances by which the crises and conclusion of a fictitious narrative, in prose or verse, are effected.
The machinery, madam, is a term invented by the critics, to signify that part which the deities, angels, or demons, are made to act in a poem. --Pope.
4. The means and appliances by which anything is kept in action or a desired result is obtained; a complex system of parts adapted to a purpose.
An indispensable part of the machinery of state. --Macaulay.
The delicate inflexional machinery of the Aryan languages. --I. Taylor (The Alphabet).
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
machinery
noun
1: machines or machine systems collectively
2: a system of means and activities whereby a social institution functions; "the complex machinery of negotiation"; "the machinery of command labored and brought forth an order"
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
213 Moby Thesaurus words for "machinery": accouterments, action, adding machine, addressing machine, agency, agent, all-crop harvester, apparatus, appliance, appliances, appointments, appurtenances, armament, automobile, backhoe, baler, bean harvester, beet harvester, binder, breaker, bulldozer, calfdozer, carryall, cast plow, channel, clockworks, combine, compressor, contraption, contrivance, convenience, conveniences, cotton picker, crab, crane, crimping machine, cultivator, cutting machine, cutting press, derrick, device, dishwasher, disk, disk harrow, disk plow, drag, dredge, dredger, dredging machine, drill, drill plow, drive, drive train, drop hammer, duffel, dumping machine, edger, elevator dredge, engine, enginery, equipage, equipment, expedient, facilities, facility, fittings, fixture, fixtures, folding machine, four-bottom plow, furnishings, furniture, gadget, gang plow, gear, gin, going between, grader, grain harvester, grub hook, habiliments, harrow, harvester, haymaker, header, hoe drill, hoist, hydraulic press, impedimenta, implement, innards, installations, instrument, instrumentality, intermediation, kit, lawn mower, lister, lister cultivator, machine, machine drill, mailing machine, materiel, means, mechanical aid, mechanical device, mechanism, mediation, medium, middlebreaker, moldboard plow, motion, motive power, motor, motorcycle, movement, movements, mower, munition, munitions, navvy, organ, outfit, packager, paraphernalia, peg-tooth harrow, pile driver, planing machine, plant, planter, plow, plow drill, plumbing, power mower, power plant, power shovel, power source, power train, prairie breaker, press, press drill, printing machine, pulp machine, punching machine, pusher, rake, recourse, resort, rig, rigging, roller, rose engine, rotary plow, ruling machine, saw machine, scooter, scraper, screwing machine, seed plow, seeder, service, servomechanism, sewer, sewing machine, shovel plow, snap machine, snow-thrower, snowblower, snowplow, solar machine, sprayer, spring-tooth harrow, stag gang, steam hammer, steam shovel, steamroller, stock-in-trade, subsoil plow, sulky lister, sulky plow, swather, swivel plow, tackle, tackling, tedder, things, thrasher, three-bottom plow, thresher, threshing machine, tool, tractor, trench plow, triphammer, turnplow, two-bottom plow, typewriter, typing machine, utensil, utensils, utility, vehicle, vineyard plow, walking plow, washing machine, watchworks, water wheel, wheels, wheels within wheels, windlass, windrower, workings, works
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